The Deuce series was back! Admittedly, a 70’s Led Zeppelin concert film (recorded at Madison Square Garden) might have been a bit of an odd (even somewhat unsatisfying) choice for the return of the monthly series, especially when we’re talking a program rife with much more 70’s low budget cinematic drive-in fare, oft loaded with delicious gobs of sleaze, sex, sadism and sometimes even smarts (with that fourth ‘s’, while certainly appreciated, nowhere near as important as the first three), after another of these seemingly never-ending anti-science pro-fascistic lockdowns (even Doug Ford is admitting at this point just how horrifically useless they’ve been). I mean, a large-scale concert film from one of the biggest 70’s mainstream hard rock bands of its day, instead of, say, some grimy little gems like Fredrick Friedl’s brilliant Axe and Kidnapped Coed? (little note: not that the organizers have ever actually shown Freidl’s double masterpieces of southern fried sadism and madness, they just happen to be two I argue fit the program like a glove and that I’ve been trying to talk them into screening as part of the series – as I even know where you can get 35mm prints of them! – but it’s fallen on deaf ears so far, but I won’t give up!)

Apparently, “Song” did have a brief engagement in one of the dingy theaters whose marquee blared out along that once dangerous and deeply sketchy stretch of Manhattan known as the Deuce, a sex-, drugs- and skeevy films-ridden 42nd Street block between 7th and 8th Avenues, long since perversely transmogrified into a far more horrible Disney-laden hellish tourist trap, its past life as a den of sin and bad behaviour only a nostalgic memory captured in our memory banks (if we were lucky enough to have been there) and photos (with the series organizers always kind enough to present a few old pics of in their pre-film presentations) so that solidified it.

While for some films, like, say, those of eccentric maniac Andy Milligan, these theaters filled with the desperate raincoat crowd gave them their only home (or as has been more elegantly quoted by the organizers of this monthly series, ‘While some people say the Deuce was where many films went to die… we say the Deuce gave them the only life they would ever have’), “Song” is an example of one of those first-run big theatrical films that fell to the Deuce for a second-run allowing the studio distributors to milk out a few extra bucks (another is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan which is coming in a few months, which I’ll likely skip, to return for some of the more ‘Deuce’-style first-run choices such as John Russo’s Midnight and Deuce regular Larry Cohen’s Deadly Illusion … you know… films most people have never heard of!).

So it was a trip down from Montreal to Williamsburg’s Nitehawk (and also to my NY gastroenterologist for my 5-year colonoscopy check-up, but that’s another story, the kind that those over 50 years old like moi are unfortunately growing far too familiar with) for a night of re-engaging with that very biggest of 70’s early-boffo-hair mainstream hard rock bands that so influenced this deeply impressionable and sheltered white kid out there in the safe space known as the ‘burbs, the heart of that long stretch of land just outside of Manhattan (though which might as well be on the opposite side of the world) with the silly meathead nickname of Strong Island.

Let’s be clear. Even for a concert film, “Song” isn’t all that great. It’s broken up with some rather silly ‘fantasy’ segments – including a hippy-dippy one with noted flower child Robert Plant traversing sea and forest for his lady in white on horseback, Jimmy Page turning into a physical mixture of devilish goat and his hero, occultist Aleister Crowley (man, was I actually in awe of all that Satanist witchcraft nonsense Page clung to during that time? The only thing worthy about it to me these days is to realize with amusement just how indulgently gay it all was, with Hollywood outsiders like Kenneth Anger and Curtis Harrington frolicking about in all the accoutrements) and perhaps the most meandering one of band manager Peter Grant as a gangster going about the countryside with his merry band of 30’s suited criminals shooting up a lot of things with their machine guns – as well as briefly follows, through some actual home footage shot at the time, the intriguing if not particularly relevant event of the very upset (and physically imposing) Grant dealing with having had a large bundle of Zep’s money stolen from a hotel safe while they were performing.

As the band members themselves have admitted, it’s not a particularly galvanizing live performance (hell, I went to see a high school buddy play some classic 70’s rock with his band in a local Long Island bar a few nights later and I thought they were tighter!). And yet, having been smitten by the band in my youth, it was still nice to see my old heroes up their performing (though I couldn’t help but wonder, with it constantly being pushed in our faces by the camera… if Robert Plant was always so prominently displaying his package or did he just happen to have a really tight pair of pants on for this NY show? I’m guessing the former…) playing some of the old hits (and, to be fair, as messy as some of the show is, Page does wonderfully nail the beautifully introspective instrumental solo riff “Bron-Yr-Aur”). I lot of that feeling of warm nostalgia came back.

While it’s true that the distance and associated closer inspection the passing of time allows may not be as kind to Zeppelin as say it has been to The Beatles, who exponentially grew musically over the decade of the 60’s, turning from a catchy pop star band to a truly experimental and transcendent group, or Pink Floyd, at least of the Roger Waters years, with his polemics remaining as important as ever, to even the seemingly never-dying Stones, whose gritty blues inspirations and desire to musically engage remain true (even through their disco years!), I still argue masterful gems can be found dotted amongst their work – everything from the absolutely grandly operatic, impressively orchestral-driven “Kashmir”, to “Stairway to Heaven”, with the band’s unabashed commitment somehow overcoming just how sappy the song is, to the profoundly hard-driving intensity of “When the Levee Breaks”, right on into my absolute favorite of all their tunes, that hardest of early trend-setting metal epics, “In My Time of Dying”. Okay, so maybe none of these songs were played in the film (other than one… and anyone who knows their modern rock history immediately knows which one…), but it doesn’t change the fact that Zep has some music to offer!

Alas, if there was a downer on the night, it’s the downer that will follow me forever forward. Yes, it was nice to be back in the familiar setting of the monthly Deuce series, starting with the copious pre-feature trailers and video clips, then on to the usual presentation by the gregarious Deuce blokes, followed by the main feature itself (with plentiful booze and food brought directly to my seat), the raffle that followed afterwards (with the fumbling DJ Jeff falling all over himself with excitement at giving out the cinema-related gifts – and I’m quite serious about him falling all over himself – we all once watched in awe as he literally fell over into the merch table in his exuberance, knocking the table, the gifts and himself tumbling to the ground), followed up with a late night trip to the Low Rez bar downstairs to keep the buzz alive… and yet… it’s different now… and will be for me forever more going forward.

I will never be able to rid myself of the sense of discomfort of how, in every town now where a newly-instituted passport is required to congregate — be it at cinema, café or restaurant — as I look at all those around me, I see just how okay everyone is with what they may refer to as the ‘New Normal’, but I call by its true name — segregation. Even as it’s coming to an end in a number of places, which it certainly is, with the political leadership slowly admitting, one by one, what an unmitigated disaster these restrictions have been (again, with ol’ Dougie Ford helping lead that charge), witnessing firsthand the comfort of the people all around in adopting it will forever leave a certain taste in my mouth.

Buck A Review   concert film   led zeppelin   musical